Farage bemoans ‘miserable’ Rachel Reeves amid call to ‘reindustrialise’

Nigel Farage has said he is on a mission to “reindustrialise” Britain, as he accused the Government of having a “miserable” and “declinist” attitude.

Speaking at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London, the Reform UK leader said that the country needs to achieve a “180 shift” in its attitude to achieve higher birth rates.

He also claimed on Tuesday that the right-wing of politics in the UK “is not split”.

Taking questions from Canadian psychologist and political commentator Jordan Peterson on stage, Mr Farage told activists: “The right is not split in this country.

“The Conservative Party is not on the right in any measurable way.”

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch spoke at the conference on Monday, when she pledged her party was “starting the largest renewal of policy and ideas in a generation”.

She claimed western civilisation itself is “in crisis”.

Mr Farage said: “Fourteen years that caused the highest tax burden since 1947.

“Fourteen years that saw mass immigration – legal mass immigration – on a scale hitherto never even dreamt of.

“Fourteen years that saw illegal immigration, small boats crossing the Channel, and the Government completely incapable of dealing with it because they couldn’t face up to what membership of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) was all about.

“And fourteen years that saw net zero enshrined into law by a Conservative government, and Boris Johnson and Theresa May as evangelical about net zero as the current (Energy Secretary) Ed Miliband.”

The MP for Clacton in Essex later added: “Our platform is to reindustrialise Britain.

“We’ve closed down our steel industry.

“We think closing down the steel industry is good because it means our national CO2 output is down.

“All that happens is the plant closes in Redcar, the plant closes in South Wales, it reopens in India under lower environmental standards, and then the steel is shipped back to us.”

Turning to birth rates, Mr Farage told Mr Peterson he “may not necessarily be the best advocate for monogamous heterosexuality or stable marriage, having been divorced twice”.

He said “what underpins everything is our Judeo-Christian culture” and continued: “Of course, we need higher birth rates, but we’re not going to get higher birth rates in this country until we can get some sense of optimism.

“And we need a complete 180 shift in attitudes.”

Mr Farage said: “I mean, God, doesn’t (Chancellor) Rachel Reeves make you want to reach for the cry tissues.

“It’s all so miserable, it’s all so declinist. Frankly, the Conservatives have been no better. We need a change of attitude in Britain.”

Reform UK’s chairman later appeared on stage as part of a panel alongside Conservative former chief Brexit negotiator Lord David Frost, chaired by former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott.

Zia Yusuf listed “a few solutions” to what he called “the impact of the net-zero madness on the United Kingdom”.

He said the country’s energy policy should “promote a flourishing, fast-growing, booming economy” with “great jobs for British people and – let’s be clear about this – in the long run it must ensure we all have clean air to breathe and a beautiful country in which to live”.

He continued to applause: “We need to start drilling in the North Sea immediately, at once and without delay.

“The fact that we are not doing this is one of the most catastrophic acts of self-harm in this country’s history.

“Secondly, we should be proliferating small modular (nuclear) reactors at great speed across this country.”

Asked whether there was a climate crisis, Mr Yusuf told activists: “There is no climate crisis on the balance of evidence I’ve observed.”

Lord Frost also rejected the idea of a climate “crisis” but said “some slow increase of global temperatures” was “nothing we can’t cope with”.